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The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

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Savonne Andrews Ms.Milliner EEs21QH-02 10/19/16 The novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a story which showcases an oppressed society named Gilead. Gilead’s society is a result of a war the United States participated in causing the country to regress to into a religious less free society. Throughout this book the biggest theme is the weakness of women within Gilead’s society. Woman in this society are ranked through a hierarchy creating several classes which all are restricted in many aspects. In this society individuality is ultimately terminated and life can only be lived properly through obeying laws without questioning. Offred, the female narrator of this story, is very frustrated having to put up with this society. Due to her frustrations she uses language through her narration to eliminate the values of this society as well as her existence. …show more content…

Throughout the book Offred constantly imagines if Gilead were just a dream or what luxuries the people she previously cared about may be living in their new society. She states “I feel drugged. I consider this: maybe they’re drugging me. Maybe the life I think I’m living is a paranoid illusion. Not a hope. I know where I am, and who, and what day it is.”(Atwood 109) This text shows that Offred likes to believe in possibilities that her life is not what it seems and that she can escape this society through her mind. However, she also realizes that her brief thoughts of escape are ultimately pointless and that her reality is something she cannot

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Throughout the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, the protagonist Offred expresses how exposed beliefs and practices by the Gilead government affect the lives of Handmaids, relaying

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As the story progresses, Offred begins to put her life at risk by doing illegal activities behind her commander’s back, such as leaving her community with the chauffeur, Nick, and playing a game of scrabble with her commander in order to get any information about the whereabouts of her daughter as well as her husband. Overall, the resolution to this uncertainty is rather disappointing because the reader believes that Offred will finally find all the answers she is looking for but in the end the reader is left with a resolution that they wish they hadn’t

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A point in the novel where we see the regret Offred has is when the readers learn more about her mother. Offred recalls her mother as a sort of hippie who was always protesting and rallying for women's rights. It can be inferred that the women’s rights campaigns Offred talked about was foreshadowing the segregation that was to come.

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I want to be here, with Nick, where I can get at him” (Atwood 338). This demonstrates how tangled her feelings are and the true internal conflict she faces. Deciding between Nick and Luke deeply conflicts Offred, however it allows her to move on from her past with Luke and move forward potentially with Nick. Throughout the novel, Offred’s inner thoughts about Gilead go back and forth from rebelling against society and giving in to the society. At a low point for Offred, she thinks, “I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will…..

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Atwood establishes militaristic and rigid settings in Gilead to emphasise the totalitarian regulation and lack of freedom within such a society, "Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle prods," using evocative animalistic imagery and prison-like descriptions, "Army cots that had been set up in rows, without spaces between so we could not talk," to show the dehumanising effects of such oppressive societies in order to consolidate supreme control. The Handmaids, as such, become dehumanised to the collective identity of mass-bred "cattle", representing their value to society merely being attributed to their sexual function. In order to consolidate the oppressive regimes, Atwood comments on the way those in power use fear as a method of silencing, marginalising and manipulating individuals from transgressing their socially prescribed roles. Atwood presents Gilead as a totalitarian regime that regulates its citizens through surveillance. This is portrayed through the symbol of the 'eyes'.

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Often, we see a society’s cultural values reflected in its citizens. For example, the United States values equality, a standard that is shared in all facets including gender. The opposite is true of Gilead, a fictional society in Emily Bronte’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel’s main character, Offred, is subjected to degrading treatment simply because she is a woman. It becomes apparent that this repeated degradation has affected the protagonist’s mind.

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However, Atwood depicts the Republic of Gilead in “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Both “The Hunger Games” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” are dystopian novels that have many similarities, however they have some differences. Collins’ and Atwood’s novels hold similarities in their ideas of societal categories, identification of these sections, constant surveillance, and public punishments. In both societies, the citizens are split into groups. In Panem, there were 13 districts and in Gilead, there were many categories of men and women.

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In this written text, the emphasis will be on Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale and as well as the way Atwood portrays women and how it can be argued to show the oppression of women. The main purpose is to analyze the way women are treated throughout this book and depict why they are represented this way in the society in Gilead. Then, comparatively, observe the men’s domination over women and how they govern this society. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are stripped of their rights, suffer many inequalities and are objectified, controlled by men and only valued for their reproductive qualities. The Gilead society is divided in multiple social group.

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